Cruel Irony
by Maelyn Rey
Summary: Yami thinks a bit about freedom after Yugi leaves for school and how it isn’t what he thought it would be.


**Cruel Irony**

By: Maelyn Rey  
Summary: Yami thinks a bit about freedom after Yugi leaves for school and how it isn't what he thought it would be.  
Rating: G – PG because I'm paranoid about underrating  
Warnings: (snort) There's no swearing, no innuendo, no compromising positions, no hints of them. I suppose that deserves a warning in itself. Now you hentai people can avoid it. (g)  
Disclaimer: I played Yami for rights to Yu-Gi-Oh, and lost. That's why I write fanfiction.  
A/N: Hmm. Well, this was going to be a response to the Drabble Challenge: Freedom, on Pharaohs Hikari ML but the word limit was 500 and this is not. And I liked the idea too much to abandon it. So here it is.

To anyone following Words Not Said—I have _not_ abandoned it. I'm just so stuck it's not even funny and it's not even because I don't know what needs to happen. I just don't like anything I've written. If you wanna help, tell me if you want the next chapter to start at the walk home, at the restaurant for lunch, or at the arcade. I screwed myself over so royally asking for that vote so close to midterms. Blah.

o/o/o/o/o

"Bye, Yami! I'll see you after school!"

He waved at the boy from the doorstep of the Kame Game Shop, returning the happy smile on his aibou's face. He held the expression until Yugi disappeared fro sight with Anzu, watching the boy though he had long since stopped looking back. Then he slipped his hands into the front pockets of his leather pants, his expression now neutral-thoughtful, and went back inside. Sugoruko looked up as he approached, smiling a little at the ancient being in the body of a nineteen-year old.

"Well, Yami, looks like you have the day off," the elder man said. "I don't have any work for you to do today, so you're free to do whatever you like. Have fun! Enjoy yourself."

Yami nodded, conjuring a little smile before walking back into the house. Sugoruko was used to the Pharaoh's aloofness and wasn't bothered by the minimal response. He was the opposite of Yugi, after all; they couldn't both be bubbly, talkative, hyper-active boys.

The darkling avoided the kitchen, heading in the opposite direction. Quiet, sure footsteps carried him up the stairs and into his other's bedroom. He stood just inside the door and looked around. There were puzzle pieces thrown carelessly on the floor—at least two different ones that were now hopelessly mixed together; action figures for a fighting game they had played the night before lay abandoned on the desk along with a scattered array of papers and some books; the comforter was spread haphazardly over the mattress—Yugi had woken late this morning and not had time to fix it; the Millennium Puzzle hung by its chain from the near bedpost. Yugi hadn't worn it to school today. He almost never did, any more.

Yami walked toward it. His fingers ghosted over the chain's cool length, then wrapped around the links and slipped it from the post. He took it with his when he retreated to the guest bedroom—his bedroom. Aside from the fact that he slept there every night, there was no evidence that the room belonged to him. The decorations were the same as when he had moved in, no posters on the walls or figurines lining the shelves. The handful of knickknacks he had collected—a glass Dark Magician Anzu had given him for his birthday which sat lonely on the dresser, a teddy bear Yugi had given him "just because" sitting in front of his pillow, his Duel Deck on his desk—hardly disguised the impersonal nature of the room. He was more its visitor than its claimant. And after the exuberance of Yugi's room, it was rather like a bucket of ice water to the face.

The room's resident didn't even pause. He closed the door, cradled the Puzzle in his hands, and dropped into the desk chair he had moved to the window. It faced the school and he could see his little one's return from its vantage. From here, he could almost imagine he was still watching over his young partner. But it was a hollow consolation.

Three years he had been bound to the Puzzle, to Yugi. Without either—both—he was nothing, doomed to a dark existence filled with cold, empty shadows. For three years he had been a slave, a prisoner—captive to a hunk of gold with the only door leading to freedom guarded by a gentle, pure-hearted boy who willingly granted it. But there was a price. There was always a price—and it was one Yami had become increasingly resistant to the more time passed, the more Yugi paid it, by choice and by force.

They shared a body. The only way for him to be free was to steal the life of the one who allowed it. Yugi didn't mind. But he did. He refused to take what rightfully belonged to another, no matter how graciously given. He had wished for true freedom then.

Yami braced his elbow on the windowsill and placed his chin in his cupped palm. A sigh slipped his lips. He was a brilliant strategist, able to foreseen the consequences of hundreds of actions a dozen steps ahead if he put his mind to it, but he hadn't foreseen the price of that wish.

He didn't realize with a body of his own that he wouldn't be able to accompany the boy everywhere he went. He didn't realize he would lose the link to his aibou, would no longer be able to visit him in his heart's room—the need for both moot as he was no longer tied to the Puzzle for sustenance. He hadn't realized how much had come to rely on Yugi's bright presence in the back of his mind, how much his other's simple joy comforted him. He hadn't realized how awkward it would be to offer comfort in return, once his gestures were visible to the world.

He realized it now, of course; now that it was far too late to change anything.

Have fun, Sugoruko had said. Enjoy yourself. But he couldn't, not by himself . . . not when the only place he wanted to be was the one place closed to him. Why could no one see that the only place he desired to be was by Yugi's side?

Unseeing eyes stared at the street below. It was a cruel irony that he had wished for a solid body to spend more time with his aibou and actually got to spend less time with him than before. Surely the gods were laughing at him; stupid little Atemu, can't get anything right.

He had spent every available opportunity with Yugi, at first. At first, it had seemed like a dream come true. Then the boy had gotten worried because he never did anything without him, dropped whatever he was doing to accompany him, offered to do whatever he was doing even when he didn't enjoy it. Yugi had pressed him to do things by himself that he liked to do, make other friends. To make his hikari happy, he had done so—sort of. He had stopped spending so much time with his other—denied his own happiness for his other. What would Yugi say if he knew? How he envied his light's friends their ability to seek out his little light's company whenever they wished!

Idly fingers traced the sides of the Puzzle, curving over the eye at the front. He often thought about telling his light the truth while waiting at the window for his other's return. He wondered if that would change things—if it would make them better or worse. He wondered which truth it would be.

He dared not find out.

With a deep sigh, Yami stood and walked back into Yugi's room. He carefully put the Puzzle back where he had found it and left. He picked up a lightweight jean jacket as he passed his room again and continued down the stairs, biding Yugi's grandfather a quiet good-bye as he walked out the front door. He shrugged on the jacket once he stepped outside, shoved his hands in the pockets, and started walking. He was going nowhere to do nothing, but the lie would make his hikari happy, make him think his dark was going things, having fun. He would prefer to just stay home, but then the boy would worry. . . .

He looked up at the pale blue sky stretching on forever, cloudless as far as the eye could see. He was free today—free to do anything he wanted except the one thing that would actually make him happy. Before he had been freed from the Puzzle, he had never imagined freedom could be so much like a prison.

Before he had been trapped in the Puzzle, he had never thought he would find his freedom in the chains he had so despised. He never thought he would wish again for the darkness once he was free of it. But he had discovered Yugi was more important. Yugi was worth any tie, bond, chain, or tether—worth spending eternity trapped.

Too bad he was free.

Freedom was horribly overrated.


End file.
